vi INTRODUCTION. 



Having made arrangements for meeting the first difficulties, 

 I timied my attention to the improvement of my drawings, and 

 began to collect from the pages of my journals the scattered notes 

 which referred to the habits of the birds represented by them. 

 I worked early and late, and glad I was to perceive that the 

 more I labom-ed the more I improved. I was happy, too, to 

 find, that in general each succeeding plate was better than its 

 predecessor, and when those who had at first endeavoured to dis- 

 suade me from undertaking so vast an enterprise, complimented 

 me on my more favourable prospects, I could not but feel happy. 

 Number after number appeared in regular succession, until at 

 the end of four years of anxiety, my engraver, Mr Havei.i>, 

 presented me with the First Volume of the Birds of America. 



Convinced, from a careful comparison of the plates, that at 

 least there had been no falling off in the execution, I looked for- 

 ward with confidence to the termination of the next four years' 

 laboiu. Time passed on, and I returned from the forests and 

 wilds of the western world to congratulate my friend Haveli>, 

 just when the last plate of the second volume was finished. 



About that time, a nobleman called upon me with his fa- 

 mily, and requested me to shew them some of the original draw- 

 ings, which I did with the more pleasiure that my visitors pos- 

 sessed a knowledge of Ornithology. In the course of our con- 

 versation, I was asked how long it might be until the work 

 should be finished. When I mentioned eight years more, the 

 nobleman shrugged up his shoulders, and sighing, said, " I may 

 not see it finished, but my children wiU, and you may please to 

 add my name to your list of subscribers." The young people 

 exhibited a mingled expression of joy and sorrow, and when I 

 with them strove to dispel the cloud that seemed to hang over 



